The problem
Weeding onion fields means either spraying herbicides or scarce, expensive hand labor — both bad economics for Lebanese farmers already squeezed by crisis, and both bad for the quality grade of the harvest.
How it works
Luxeed’s chemical-free weeding robot, Ultron, scans crop rows with an AI vision system trained on 5,000 images from Lebanese onion fields and fires a precise laser at each weed’s growth center, preventing regrowth while crops stand unharmed. The founders concentrated on the technology because, as they put it, this weeding method had not grown fully into commercial use anywhere in the world.
Pain points
Costly herbicides with residue downsides, grueling manual weeding nobody wants to do, and harvests downgraded by weed pressure.
Business model
Service, not sale: once the machine is fully tested, farmers buy weeding-as-a-service per field — six farmers had already signed letters of intent by September 2020.
Challenges
A hardware startup in Lebanon means importing components that get stuck in covid-delayed shipments, parts unavailable locally, lockdowns blocking farm visits in Bekaa and Akkar, and an unstable home market — the founders openly call themselves an early-stage startup subject to heavy risk, weighing building abroad before returning.
Funding
- No priced round disclosed (funding MISSING): backed by non-equity funding through Berytech’s Agrytech Accelerator Batch 3, which the founders chose over equity-taking programs.
- Grant: $10,000 equity-free PepsiCo Foundation grant plus one-month Plug and Play online incubation for third place at the Arab Youth Hackathon final at COP28 in Dubai (Dec 2023).
Latest — Jan 2024
On 15 January 2024 Berytech reported Luxeed — “another proud Berytech alum” — had taken third place at the PepsiCo Arab Youth Hackathon final at COP28, winning the $10,000 grant to transform the Ultron weeding-robot idea into a startup plus Plug and Play incubation, after qualifying through the October 2023 Beirut bootcamp alongside PulP and Green Taqa (Berytech).